


Giltran and The Mother Of Invention

by sufficientlyinteresting



Series: Giltran [2]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Body Horror, Dark Mechanicus, Gen, Heretek, Original Character(s), Tentacles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-11-17 15:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sufficientlyinteresting/pseuds/sufficientlyinteresting
Summary: In which Heretek Archmagos Giltran tells the story of the final stages of the development of the Helstalker (it's more interesting than it sounds, believe me)





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Heretek Archmagos Giltran The Undying coins a phrase that would seriously piss off my mistress.

It is often said amongst the tech-adepts of the True Mechanicus that desire is the father of invention. There is a lot of wisdom held in those words. The fires of a human soul burn brighter than magnesium, and hotter than any furnace. Willpower is the motive force of the galaxy, and desire is its promethium. 

But like all pithy nuggets of wisdom, these words do not tell the entire story. Many things can drive a person to greatness, and one motivation in particular is every bit as potent as desire; need. When you have no viable options available, the only recourse is to make one. The results that can come from a combination of immutable requirements and a brilliant mind cannot be overlooked. Let me then propose a novel corollary; Necessity is the mother of invention.

Oh. Please don't spread that particular phrase around, if you would be so kind. If she ever hears it, she'll kill me. 

Well, she'd try anyway, and I'd rather save both of us the inconvenience.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Archmagos Giltran gets up to speed with recent events

_Node discovery broadcast detected. Node ID not already in local mesh. Handshake complete, beginning key exchange. Received engrams: Swamplight in the moors of Jaraxis. The smell of citrus in the afterglow. Looking out at my own face through curved glass. Engram validation succeeded, generating session key. Session established. Beginning resynchronization._

I was meeting with Prime Fabricator Lokum when I arrived back in system, and the memories of what I had been up to while outsystem flooded into me. The other me was aboard the light cruiser _Blazing Astrolabe_ , which had just emerged from the Immaterium at the edge of the system. As it was built to do, upon return to realspace the implant in my other head had begun squawking on a particular vox channel. The vox range on my implants is fairly short in the scale of a solar system, but it’s signal was picked up by a repeater which relayed the signal to Hellforge Vrykul, and in turn to me. In seconds a secure vox connection was set up, and the exchange of memories between me and myself began.

“I do appreciate now that you were diverting your time to your personal project, and while it is a remarkable achievement I see no reason why it should continue to distract you.” Lokum snivelled from across the table, his swollen-looking face somehow even redder than normal.

The synchronization did not need to be a distraction - the new memories felt like they had always been there, and while their addition caused what are best described as ‘ripples’ in my consciousness, they would have been easy to ignore if I had needed to. But allowing myself to be distracted by them was vastly preferable to continuing to listen to Lokum.

“The system has had more than enough time to ‘bed in’, as you put it, and I won’t accept it as an excuse for your slackness anymore.”

I examined the memories as they came in, mentally skipping over the boring stretches. I had secluded myself for quite a few years to work on a new design, a new pattern of daemon engine I had originally thought to call an Abeyant in homage to the technology of long ago. I had since changed the name of the design to Helstalker, and I had to admit that it fit into modern parlance much better. Naming things properly is crucial, and I was gladdened to learn that I had not lost my touch.

“You’ve said it yourself, Giltran. You are the most skilled Magos on this planet, and while I know you feel like you are above the work in the manufactorums that doesn’t change the fact that I need you there,” Lokum whined. I started to correct him - I am an _Arch_ magos, after all - but I was distracted enough that my words didn’t come out as more than a vague murmur, which Lokum seemed to take as a signal to continue.

The Helstalker’s development was nearly complete, but had run into an issue. The novel feature of the design was to be its ability to disrupt the machine spirits of enemy vehicles, particularly in terms of offensive capability. The theory behind it was sound, and field trials proved it correct, but an unexpected side effect had manifested. The discordance was also affecting the daemonic spirits of daemon engines, including the Helstalker itself, and the symmetry of the effect stood to ruin it’s tactical value.

“The Hellforge has given you much, Giltran, and you have given it much to it as well. For a long time, there was a balance there, and I think it worked for all of us. But the recent decades have seen you taking more and more, and giving less and less in return. It isn’t good.”

I was confident the issue could be solved, but I was fairly sure that it was beyond my capabilities, or at least that continuing my efforts to solve it in isolation wouldn’t be efficient. That was why I had come to Vrykul, and to me. Not because I could help - while two heads are better than one, I am still me, and I have the same limitations as any of me - but because I could more easily make contact with someone who probably could.

It was time to go see Selvaria.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Giltran briefly recounts his long history with my mistress, and makes a mistake that will haunt him for many years to come

To say that I have a complicated relationship with Selvaria Erskine Anshe would be an understatement. We have been at various points friends, rivals, confidants, adversaries, and lovers. We have collaborated on great works of warpcraft, and we have thrown plates at each other in fits of screaming rage. We have faced mortal peril back to back, and she once very nearly killed me. That was ultimately over a misunderstanding, mind, but to this day I’m not entirely sure if she was pulling her punches.

I nearly asked her to marry me once. Gods, but what a mistake _that_ would have been.

“Are you listening to me, Giltran?”

Selvaria is a talented warpsmith, though her areas of strength are different to mine. Where I interact with the warp on a purely mundane level (if anything relating to the warp can ever be called ‘mundane’), she is a strong psyker, and a powerful sorceress besides. Where I am a master of mechanisms, she excels at the summoning and binding of daemonic entities. Needless to say that we make a good team, at least for as long as we can keep from turning on each other. In the past this has taken anywhere from years at a time to, in one particularly unfortunate incident, a little under three days. Since I was going to be coming to her for a favour, I knew I would need to be on my best behavior, and trust to luck that doing so wasn't exactly the wrong approach. Nobody ever leaves me guessing quite like she does.

I hadn’t seen Selvaria since before my ascension, and my other self had correctly judged that my original body would have the best chance of convincing her to help me with the issues in the Helstalker design. Most of my other bodies are heavily augmented and bear little resemblance to my original form, and you cannot underestimate the power of monkey-brained recognition to influence how humans treat each other.

“I said, are you listening to me, Giltran?” Lokum said again, and looked up to see him standing up, his hands palm down on the table, glaring at me with all his might. A vein at his temple throbbed almost cartoonishly, and his usually ruddy complexion had heated to a red so bright that it looked like he might simply burst.

I looked at Lokum for a moment, blinking. He was going to be a problem. I did have obligations here, but nothing that truly mattered, especially now that I had achieved immortality. But one doesn’t become the Prime Fabricator of a major Hellforge by accident, and while I had no warm feelings for the man he was very well connected amongst the True Mechanicus. I needed to avoiding aggravating him too badly, but I also needed to leave Vrykul, and soon.

“I was, Prime Fabricator, but I was distracted, I’m sorry. My attention was diverted by an incoming communication. I need to travel out-system as soon as possible on a personal matter. I have another body inbound aboard the _Blazing Astrolabe_ , and he will take up my manufactorum duties diligently as soon as he makes planetfall, if that meets with your approval.” I said, as ingratiatingly as possible. I didn’t really expect it to go down well, if I’m honest, but I did entirely underestimate just how 'not well' it would go.

“ **NO!** ” roared the Prime Fabricator, his augmetic voice box increasing the volume of the word to deafening levels. “You are assigned here, Giltran. You! Not any of those things you claim are you, you, this you, right here. And you have been ignoring your responsibilities for a long time, Giltran, and I’ve tolerated that far more than I should've. That’s over. You cannot leave, I do not give my approval, you corpse-licking bastard.”

Elsewhere in Vrykul, my other selves knew what was about to happen before I did. Several things happened at once:  
-I dropped lubricant applicator I was holding, and began climbing the frame of the captured and subjugated Imperial Knight _Vaulted Furnace,_ making for the cockpit.  
-I turned my body (consisting of only my head) within it's life support vessel and looked at the nurgling that was re-arranging the tools in my workshop for the umpteenth time, and voxed aloud ‘Gather up your plague, Squelch. We are leaving. Now.’  
-I ran for the command deck of the _Blazing Astrolabe_. I needed to urge the captain to push on to Vrykul with all haste, and negotiate how much it was going to cost me to get him to switch his scheduled cargo pickup for a brief orbital rendezvous and a swift exit from the system.

In the conference room of the Citadel of Hellforge Vrykul, the center of Lokum’s power on the planet, I stalked around the table and punched the Prime Fabricator square in the face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Giltran realizes the enormity of his mistake (sort of- the worst of it is a goodly way off yet)

I was angry. That's all I have to say in defense of my rash action, though I know it is a poor excuse. I don't anger easily, generally speaking, but every so often something will set me off. Often it's something fairly minor, like being called a corpse-licking bastard by an over-inflated bureaucrat who wouldn't know what insight looked like if it took him by the waist and danced the waltz with him. The anger burns itself out quickly enough, but the results of it tend come back to haunt me later on. 

This time the consequences were somewhat more immediate. My hand crunched audibly against Lokum's face, but the sound issued from my hand, not his nose. I reeled back, cursing in pain with somewhat less coherency than I usually manage.

In my rage-clouded state, I had overlooked a rather important fact about Lokum. He looks entirely unremarkable. He offers the appearance of a human male, of average height, slightly overweight in an unflattering and vaguely lumpen sort of fashion, with a ruddy complexion that is perfectly in-keeping with his thinning black hair. He looks like an officious waste of oxygen, and while that is true to his very core, his facade is only skin deep.

The truth about the Prime Fabricator is that he is almost entirely augmetic, and every advancement of technology he has ever pioneered has been entirely cosmetic. Beneath the thin but incredibly complex workings that present his carefully crafted semblance of mediocrity is nothing but steel, and all manner of harder materials besides. I knew this, intellectually. But in my moment of rage, I had fallen into a trap crafted of the same monkey-brained tendency that I was hoping to leverage against Selvaria - I allowed how someone looked to influence my judgement. I saw a weak and overconfident man who needed to be put in his place, and I reacted accordingly. And now the jaws of that trap had snapped closed, as attested by the sharp pain radiating from at least two broken knuckles in my right hand.

Lokum looked at me, seemingly perplexed for a moment, then his mouth widened into smile, and it had a malicious look to it that made my skin crawl.

“Oh, Giltran. I’m so glad it has come to this.” he said, measuredly, all his agitation gone, replaced with a smooth menace. His smile widened further, and further, his skin splitting along cardinal lines and the lower half of his face peeling back in large triangles. Beneath, a mass of mechanical tendrils writhed and began to emerge from the hole like so many eels, their ends tipped with various tools, most of which looked sharp.

I looked around quickly, and assessed my options. The room was drab, and sparsely furnished. Table, chairs, a cabinet containing sundry supplies and a few glasses, a pitcher of water sitting atop it untouched. Nothing I could use to defend myself, and definitely nothing like a decent weapon. So I did the only thing I reasonably could.

I ran like hell.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Archmagos Giltran doesn't run for his life fast enough

You might take my choice to flee as cowardice. After all, I am immortal, am I not? The inevitability of body loss was a key design factor when I was deciding exactly how to live forever. Indeed, it was the primary factor that led me to the distributed, redundant, asynchronous model that I eventually implemented. Lokum could kill me, but I would not die, for the three other nodes in system would continue on, as would other nodes elsewhere. I could have just let it happen.

But I couldn’t just let it happen. I want to live. Everyone wants to live, and every node in the system that makes up me also wants to live just as much as any single-bodied person. The instinct for self preservation is strong, and far too useful to discard entirely. I will never accept a death passively; to do so would be wasteful if nothing else.

But more than that, consider why these events were happening. It was because my original body had an advantage over the other instances of myself - my original appearance. It was why I needed to leave, and it was also why I needed to keep myself intact. 

Fleeing the Prime Fabricator was not cowardice. It was pragmatism.

I darted from the room, not stopping to check if Lokum was giving chase, slamming the door shut behind me. The corridor beyond was as nondescript as the meeting room, in the manner of purely functional spaces everywhere. Plain off-white walls and thin grey carpet stretched a long distance in either direction, occasionally punctuated by doors or other corridors. There were no windows - I was deep in the complex, and a long way from the unnatural light of Vrykul’s star - and the harsh white lights dotting the ceiling reinforced the impersonal nature of the place.

I turned right and dashed down the hallway, looking for a stairwell. The Citadel was a massive structure, a behemoth of ferrocrete and steel. In better times, it had been full of administrators, co-ordinators and the like, performing the work required to keep a manufactorum the size of a Hellforge running. But like everywhere in the Eye of Terror, things had been in decline since the boom time at the start of The Long War. Over ten thousand years, production in Hellforge Vrykul and the other manufactorums has declined steadily as resources have become more scarce and demand from the Legions has dropped. At this point, only a fraction of the Citadel is used, and even the occupied portions feel cavernous and empty. I was a fair distance from the entrance, and the first step was to get to ground level. 

Unfortunately, the Prime Fabricator had other plans. From behind me, I heard a squeal of twisted metal and the rapid _crack-crack-crack_ of splintering ferrocrete. I looked back and saw the door to the room had been broken off and flung to the far side of the corridor, where it leaned against the opposite wall, debris strewn across the corridor. Lokum stepped through the hole in the wall that it had previously occupied and turned to look at me, his expression unreadable behind the tendrils of his jaw-mounted mechadendrite hive.

Then he moved. He was  _ fast.  _ He kicked the door, breaking it cleanly in half with a sharp crack. Bending slightly, he twisted his torso an amount that would have broken a human body, grabbed the upper half of the door before it could hit the ground and threw it straight at me in one smooth motion.

I yelped, throwing myself through an open doorway to avoid the projectile. I ended up sprawled  on the floor of the room as the door fragment careened past, crashing loudly against the wall near the doorway. I stood up quickly and looked around I was in an office, a small one, but on the desk was, I kid you not, a sword. It rested on an ornate wooden stand, and while it was obviously ancient, its blade gleamed, the pride and attention of its owner obvious. What kind of asshole keeps a sword on display on his desk? But at that point, I wasn’t in position to complain. I grabbed its handle and gasped in pain. Broken fingers. Right. Using my left hand, I drew the weapon quickly from its stand, the slightly curved blade flashing a reflection of the room’s stark white light into my eyes for a moment. It was lighter than I expected, but it was clearly meant to be wielded in two hands. I tried putting my other hand on the hilt, but as I tightened my grip the pain became too much and I released it with a curse. So that was untenable.

I had a weapon. A two-handed blade, held one handed, and in my off-hand. But it was better than nothing, because it was then that Lokum appeared in the doorway, completely blocking my only exit from the room.


End file.
